The Business Of Sumo

Q

uestion: How much prize money is awarded to the winner of a bout decided by forfeit?

(You can find the answer at the end of this article.)

Although baseball is, to many people, as American as apple pie and fireworks on the Fourth of July, Japan has made a name for itself in the game, thanks, in part, to legends such as Sadaharu Oh. But the Japanese furor for baseball is superseded by the Pacific island nation’s love for its own creation, sumo wrestling.

This sport, in which extremely large men grapple with each other inside a ring, is part of a deep-rooted tradition in Japan. It’s also a huge business worth millions of yen to the wrestlers and those who train them.

Here, we’ll take a look at how the sport is organized, how much money sumo wrestlers are making, and what corporate sponsors are contributing.

Note: All amounts are in U.S. dollars.

Organization

The governing body of professional sumo wrestling is the Japan Sumo Association, also known as Nihon Sumo Kyokai. Wrestlers of other nationalities are welcome to compete, but professional competitions only take place in Japan.

Association members are former wrestlers and, as such, are the only people allowed to train new wrestlers. All wrestlers are part of a training stable; there are 54 stables in Sumo, for a total of nearly 700 wrestlers. The association provides stables with approximately $550 in monthly training payments for each wrestler who’s not in one of the top two divisions.

There’s plenty of incentive for masters to recruit and train winners: For sumo stables, the cash cows are yokozuna — or grand champions — who are worth about $3,000 every two months. Larger stables may receive total payouts that approach $1 million annually.

Salaries

Sumo wrestling is a strict, hierarchical meritocracy. In other words, competitors are promoted or demoted based solely on their performance. When entering sumo, wrestlers begin in the lowest of the sport’s six professional divisions with the intention to work their way up the ladder.

Only wrestlers in the top two divisions — about 66 in total — receive a salary, travel allowance and prize money. In the lower tiers, wrestlers basically beg for scraps and do chores in exchange for a very basic living allowance.

The base salary for a yokozuna is about $23,900 per month, while a wrestler in the second division typically makes about $8,700 a month. In 1993, grand champion Akebono earned about $800,000, which was more than triple his base salary.